{"id":45002,"date":"2019-01-12T22:51:13","date_gmt":"2019-01-12T22:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/?p=45002\/"},"modified":"2024-05-10T10:28:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T10:28:24","slug":"a-better-mental-model-for-rhythm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/learn\/a-better-mental-model-for-rhythm\/","title":{"rendered":"A Better Mental Model for Rhythm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"postLeadIn\">This episode is part of the Musicality Unleashed series. Learn more and get a bonus &#8220;cheat sheet&#8221; at musicalityunleashed.com. In this episode, we share an intuitive model for counting rhythm: rhythm syllables! Learn why this method trumps the \u201c1-e-and-a 2-e-and-a\u201d method by a mile.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Listen to the episode:<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I-rdTa-a0aQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class='podcast_subscribe_buttons'><p class='subscribe_cta'>Subscribe For Future Episodes!<\/p>\n    <div class='buttons'><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribeitunes' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"apple\");'><i class='fa fa-apple' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> Apple Podcasts<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribeandroid' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"android\");'><i class='fa fa-android' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> Android<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribeyoutube' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"youtube\");'><i class='fa fa-youtube' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> YouTube<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribegplay' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"gplay\");'><i class='fa fa-google' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> Google Play<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribestitcher' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"stitcher\");'><img src='https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/wp-content\/themes\/Divi-MU\/img\/Stitcher-icon.png' alt='Stitcher' class='podcast_icon'>Stitcher<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscriberss' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"rss\");'><i class='fa fa-rss' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> RSS<\/a><\/div>\n    <p class='review_cta'>Enjoying the show? Please consider <a href='https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/podcast-review\/' target='_blank' onclick='logPodReview();'>rating and reviewing it!<\/a><\/p>\n    <\/div>\n<h2>Links and Resources<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"shownotes_links\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/learn\/talking-rhythm-the-kodaly-method\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Talking Rhythm: The Kod\u00e1ly Method<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/learn\/talking-rhythm-syncopated-rhythms-and-the-kodaly-method\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Talking Rhythm: Syncopated Rhythms and the Kod\u00e1ly Method<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/musl.ink\/pod141\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Musicality Unleashed: A Better mental Model<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class='podcast_review_cta'><p class='review_cta'>Enjoying Musicality Now? Please support the show by rating and reviewing it!<\/p>\n    <p class='review_button'><a class='cta_button' href='https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/podcast-review\/' target='_blank' onclick='logPodReview();'>Rate and Review!<\/a><\/p>\n    <\/div><!-- MU Podcast Schema -->\n<div class='mu_podcast_schema' itemscope itemtype='https:\/\/schema.org\/PodcastEpisode'>\n <div style='display:none;'>\n  <a itemprop='url' href='https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/learn\/a-better-mental-model-for-rhythm\/'>\n       <span itemprop='name'>A Better Mental Model for Rhythm<\/span>\n  <\/a>\n  <div itemprop='datePublished' datetime= '2019-01-12T22:51:13+00:00'>2019-01-12T22:51:13+00:00<\/div>\n  <div itemprop='description'>Learn about an intuitive, highly effective model for counting rhythm, and how it can help you easily notate and play complex patterns in music.<\/div>\n    <div itemprop='associatedMedia' itemscope itemtype='https:\/\/schema.org\/MediaObject'>\n      <div itemprop='image' href= 'https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Musicality-Unleashed-6-1.jpg'>https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Musicality-Unleashed-6-1.jpg<\/div>\n   <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<h2>Transcript<\/h2><div class='mu_podcast_transcript'>\n        <div id='mu_podcast_transcript-link-45002' aria-expanded='false' class='sh_link sh_hide'><a class='cta_button mu_podcast_transcript_showhide_link' href='#' onclick=\"showhide_toggle('mu_podcast_transcript',45002,'Show Transcript','Hide Transcript');return false;\"><span id='mu_podcast_transcript-toggle-45002'>Show Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div><div id='mu_podcast_transcript-content-45002' class='sh-content sh-hide' style='display:none;'>\n        <div itemprop='audio' itemscope itemtype='https:\/\/schema.org\/AudioObject'>\n          <div itemprop='transcript'>\n           \n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re like most musicians, you\u2019ve wanted to play by ear but found it didn\u2019t come naturally to you. But what you might not have realised is that of the two major aspects of music, pitch and rhythm, it&#8217;s actually only the pitch that you really struggle with.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve been playing music for a while then the chances are good that your ability to mimic back a rhythm are actually really solid.<\/p>\n<p>Try it now &#8211; clap or tap this rhythm back [clapping followed by pause]<\/p>\n<p>So you have the rhythm instinct &#8211; but could you write that down in notation? Or if you saw the rhythm notation, would you know how to clap it or play it?<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s clearly a piece missing &#8211; and that&#8217;s having the right mental model to interpret and understand what you&#8217;re instinctively able to do.<\/p>\n<p>You probably think about rhythm in terms of counting beats: 1, 2, 3, 4 or \u201c1 and 2 and 3 and 4\u201d or even \u201c1 ee and a 2 ee and a\u201d and so on.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s understandable &#8211; it&#8217;s the way we&#8217;re taught rhythm in traditional music education around the world.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s a fine system.<\/p>\n<p>But clearly it isn&#8217;t enabling you to write down the rhythms you could clap back by ear, or perform them from sheet music &#8211; at least not without stopping to slowly and carefully think through the 1-e-and-a of it all!<\/p>\n<p>So there&#8217;s some kind of mismatch between how our brains are understanding rhythm and how we&#8217;re consciously thinking about it.<\/p>\n<p>What if we could put in place a mental model that let us leverage that instinctive understanding of rhythm to actually know exactly in terms of notation and note durations, what&#8217;s being played?<\/p>\n<p>That would empower us to write rhythms down or read them from sheet music easily, as well as enabling greater freedom to improvise or compose our own rhythms.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out there is just such a system, called &#8220;rhythm syllables&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In this mental model you have particular spoken patterns which correspond to particular rhythmic patterns.<\/p>\n<p>For example that pattern I clapped before (clap) would actually be \u201cta ti-ti tika-tika ta\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It may sound like nonsense syllables &#8211; but there&#8217;s a carefully-thought-out system to it all, and when you&#8217;ve learned it and practiced a bit, any rhythm you hear automatically just gets translated in your head to the corresponding rhythm syllables and that lets you easily write them down.<\/p>\n<p>And the reverse works too: you can look at the notation, know the rhythm syllables and then be immediately able to speak, clap or play the right rhythm.<\/p>\n<p>This is compatible with counting rhythms so although it can be used independently, for most musicians it&#8217;s an amazing sidekick for counting which suddenly gives greater insight and understanding of all the rhythms we understood instinctively but couldn&#8217;t make sense of intellectually.<\/p>\n<p>Learning rhythm syllables gives you a new mental model which can empower you in a new way in music. We\u2019ll talk more about mental models and putting a new foundation in place in the rest of this Musicality Unleashed series.<\/p>\n<div class='podcast_subscribe_buttons'><p class='subscribe_cta'>Subscribe For Future Episodes!<\/p>\n    <div class='buttons'><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribeitunes' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"apple\");'><i class='fa fa-apple' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> Apple Podcasts<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribeandroid' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"android\");'><i class='fa fa-android' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> Android<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribeyoutube' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"youtube\");'><i class='fa fa-youtube' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> YouTube<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribegplay' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"gplay\");'><i class='fa fa-google' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> Google Play<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscribestitcher' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"stitcher\");'><img src='https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/wp-content\/themes\/Divi-MU\/img\/Stitcher-icon.png' alt='Stitcher' class='podcast_icon'>Stitcher<\/a><span class='separator'> | <\/span><a href='http:\/\/musicalitynow.com\/subscriberss' target='_blank' class='label' onclick='logPodSubscribe(\"rss\");'><i class='fa fa-rss' aria-hidden='true'><\/i> RSS<\/a><\/div>\n    <p class='review_cta'>Enjoying the show? Please consider <a href='https:\/\/www.musical-u.com\/podcast-review\/' target='_blank' onclick='logPodReview();'>rating and reviewing it!<\/a><\/p>\n    <\/div>\n\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<!-- \/MU Podcast Schema -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn about an intuitive, highly effective model for counting rhythm, and how it can help you easily notate and play complex patterns in music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":45003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.136,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.6785,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.85,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.2,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.9,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.27,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.02,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.47,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[752,11,385],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","category-practice-music","category-rhythm"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - 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